Honors Program

Freshman Year

• Enroll into ENGL 30 "Honors Freshmen Composition" this requirement can be waived if English is a second language

• Take a minimum of 7 honors credits. These credits must be taken over at least 3 separate honors courses during the academic year. An academic year starts in the fall and continues through the summer session.

Sophomore Year

• Take at least 3 honors courses for a minumum of 7 honors credits during the academic year. (An academic year starts in the fall and continues through the summer session.) Honors credits may be accumulated by enrolling into regular Honors courses, taking a 400-level course as a sophomore, turning a course into an honors option, or conducting honors independent study or research.

• Start thinking about a topic for your honors thesis and find yourself a thesis supervisor. Please be aware that only full-time, tenure track faculty can function as thesis supervisors.

• In your 4th semester at the latest, start working on your thesis project.

Junior Year

• During your junior and senior years combined take a total of 14 honors credits. Up to 6 honors credits may be earned for thesis preparation.

• File your Senior Honors Thesis Proposal Report in the Schreyer Honors College by May 1 (check this date with Schreyers, subject to change)!

• Conduct your thesis research.

• Present a poster with the data of your thesis research at the Annual Undergraduate Research Exibition.

Senior Year

• During your junior and senior years combined, take a total of 14 honors credits. Up to 6 honors credits may be earned for thesis preparation.

• Two weeks prior to the last day of classes, submit your thesis and original title page to your honors advisor for review and signature.

• Submit your thesis (unbound copy), the original signed title page, and your academic vitae to the Schreyer Honors College by 5 p.m. at the last day of classes.

The Honor's thesis is an important aspect of your Honor's work in Biology. Normally, this will involve presenting original research results that you have performed over the previous semesters. The usual format for presenting this work is outlined below. Keep in mind these are guidelines only. If another format is more appropriate, this will be considered upon consultation with your research advisor and another member of the Honor's committee. The length of each section is dependent upon many variables, but in all cases the work is to reflect the highest quality of scholarship. You might find it helpful to inspect past theses and we have placed some examples of high quality work in the Undergraduate Office in 329 Whitmore.

Submission

The completed thesis, with the research advisor's signature, is due in the Undergraduate Office in 329 Whitmore seven calendar days before the last day of the semester. Late submissions will NOT be accepted, nor will direct submissions to individual members of the Departmental Honors Committee. Please, plan accordingly to avoid heartbreak. You will be contacted early the following week by the second faculty reader who may request changes. After the final thesis is approved, and signed, you may submit the hardcopy to the Honors College. In addition, you are encouraged to submit a .PDF formatted version to the department; if you need access to a computer with a copy of Acrobat contact us and we will arrange for you to convert your thesis to a format that can be published on the department's Web page (if the work contains proprietary or privileged information we can postpone posting until informed by yourself, or research advisor to go public with the work).

Suggested Thesis Format

Introduction

The introduction should discuss the research problem in sufficient breadth to be understandable by any biologist. It should also contain the most current references that are available. Textbook information is considered common knowledge and therefore only current review articles and primary research articles should be cited. The introduction should contain a clear statement (preferably a hypothesis) that describes the goal of the research.

Materials and Methods

This section should include sufficient information so a biologist trained in that area could repeat the work. However, it must be understandable by any biologists and all technical terms should be defined.

Results

The data that are directly relevant to the thesis should be presented using journal standards. Strive for concise prose. It is not necessary to present multiple graphs on separate pages, or to present multiple plots on separate graphs. Raw DNA sequence data without analysis is inappropriate. Digital photographs should be printed on high quality paper and all micrographs should contain scale bars. All figures should contain a separate description legend. The text, describing the data, should be limited to the presented information. It is not acceptable to mention results without showing the data (i.e., you may not cite a statement with "data not shown"). It is permitted to present negative data.

Discussion

The Discussion should review the significance of the data in a clear, concise, and scholarly manner. You should interpret your findings directly to what is already known and published in the field. If your results provide new insight in an area, clearly and explicitly discuss the importance of your results. If your results confirm what is already known, then state this and supply a current citation. Students are encouraged to conclude with a statement of hypotheses that they feel could be tested as a result of their work. It is acceptable to combine the results and discussion section.

References

Cited literature should be the most current that is relevant to the work and be supplied in a format used by a journal of the student's choice. Do not mix format styles. Use standard journal abbreviations (the reference desk of the Life Science library can help you with this).

Legends to Figures

Each figure should have a short description (a title sentence, followed by several descriptive sentences). These can be supplied as a list at the end, or can be printed onto the figure itself.

• BIOL 110H

• BIOL 220M

• BIOL 230M

• BIOL 240M

• Contact the course instructor to discuss the possibilty of turning the course into an honors option and to plan a project for the honors option. Be aware of the fact that honors options must be supervised by members of the regular faculty (i.e., ot a graduate student, part-time faculty, or member of the University staff who is not on the faculty). To help you design a plan for your honors option, an Honors Option resource File is available for your review in the Scholars Office. This document contains project descriptions and evaluations from students who have previously completed honors options and may be inspirational to you.

• Obtain an honors option form and clearly outline the work that you are proposing to do. Sign it and obtain the signatures of the honors option supervisor as well as your honors advisor.

• Submit the completed form to the Schreyer Honor College NO LATER THAN THE THIRD WEEK of the semester in which the course is taken.

• Register for the course without the H designation. The Schreyer Honors College will add the H credit for all courses for which honors options forms have been filed.